Dialogue options and the illusion of choice

[jkweath]

So I started playing through Ocarina of Time 3DS a few days ago, and there's something I noticed that I never noticed as a child: OoT has a LOT of dialogue options. However, every dialogue option essentially amounts to this formula:

"Link, do you want this/will you do this?"

• Yes, I will accept this item/undertake this task
• Nah

If you select "yes", the story goes on as planned. However, if you select "no" this always happens:

"Oh, silly! You do too want this item/you will undertake this task!"

Of course, there are also some dialogue options that result in something like "Okay, return to me when you're ready to accept this" and then story progress halts until you select "yes". I think I'm about 1/3 the way through the game and I've already come across 4-5 dialogue options of this exact sort.

It got me thinking, though: What's the point of giving the player all these choices if they result in the same outcome? I can understand the comedic effect of having one or two dialogue options like this, but when every single dialogue choice in the game works the same way, it gets redundant after awhile.

So anyway, on to the discussion, what do you guys think of giving players the illusion of choice in dialogue options (i.e. every option leads to the same outcome)? Personally, like I said earlier, it can be amusing sometimes as the "wrong" choice could lead to an angry NPC or humorous banter, but IMO it defeats the purpose of having choices in the game if every choice leads to the same outcome.

 

[The Stranger]

Not a fan of illusion of choice, unless said illusion is one of the main themes of the game\story; all paths eventually lead to the same destination. There's just no real reason to include these silly little choices. I mean, they aren't even choices - half of them don't even allow you to select anything but yes.

Of course, not every RPG needs to be filled with choice & consequence; nothing wrong with a linear story with zero choice beyond exploration, battles, and deciding when to save.

 

[Andar]

While overdone false choices can get tedious in a game, you're forgetting that there is one situation where such a choice is abslutely neccessary:
The question "do you want to continue?" on chapter breaks or when proceeding to a new map where you can't go back.
Because if the player gets to that position before clearing all sidequests, they often want to stay there until ready instead of automatically proceeding.

 

[Kes]

Apart from the exception which Andar mentions, I think it is very rare for an illusory choice to be anything other than irritating.

This thread is quite old, but there are some good points in it.
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/the-illusion-of-choice-and-but-thou-must.15245

 

[jkweath]

Apart from the exception which Andar mentions, I think it is very rare for an illusory choice to be anything other than irritating.

True that, though I do think some games do illusory choices better than others. Golden Sun, for example, had tons of illusory choices (in the form of facial expressions), but most of them resulted in pretty humorous dialogue, so it wasn't a big deal.

 

[Matseb2611]

Personally I despise false choices. If a choice exists, it needs to change something in the game on a mechanical level, even if this change is tiny, such as gaining or losing a point of trust/karma with someone.

I honestly don't think Andar's example is a dialogue choice though, nor is it a false choice. It's just a warning message for the player, at which point they can still choose either to proceed or to stay and finish up on any sidequests and other tasks. With these of course I am fine and in fact highly in support of.

 

[Milennin]

I don't need long term changes, depending on what I picked. A few lines of unique dialogue per choice is fine for me. What I do dislike is when I'm given a choice, but the game won't let me progress until I pick what it wants me to.

 

[Rayhaku808]

If a choice exists, it needs to change something in the game on a mechanical level, even if this change is tiny, such as gaining or losing a point of trust/karma with someone.

This is the main thing that I like about guild wars 2. All options you pick lead are mostly inconsequential and lead to the same path in the story. You can choose to either save a hospital or an orphanage. But this ultimately has no major effect on the plot but in the world you created with this decision, I'll always see that the hospital is destroyed and kids will be thanking me for saving their home.

 

[Wavelength]

I disagree with pretty much everything that's been said in this topic so far. Immediately telling a player "actually I'm going to ignore the choice you just made" is insulting (unless played for laughs), but offering what appears to be a genuine, plot-altering or relationship-altering choice that quickly leads (in a convincing fashion) to the standard path can instill a sense of impact and consequence into your game without doing all the legwork to create lots of extra content or conditional branches. It can feel cheap to a player who eventually plays through the game and makes a different choice, or looks up the results in a strategy guide/wiki, but during that first run it still feels really impactful. And while it can be cool to have dialogue choices or decisions have an impact on gameplay (like gaining a different item, stat, or faction points), this is completely unnecessary - the ability to make a choice can be a reward enough in itself. Check out Persona 4 for an absolutely brilliant example of how Illusion of Choice can make a game feel good.

 

[Veethree]

If nothing else, these dialogue trees at least flesh out the personality of the protagonist as projected on by the player. The player still has agency over how the conversation goes, even though the end outcome is the same. Personally, I find it annoying when your dialogue options influence the game too much: I feel like I'm always being shoehorned into the obviously right decision instead of what I feel I would say.

 

[Lynvia]

I found some of the decisions in Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross to be end-game impactful. You were limited on your party choices based on your interactions, and took slightly different paths.

On darker notes, the Force Awakens(?) game and Infamous, while not RPG, were very obviously different in game paths depending on the choices you made in the games. The impact of the decisions made gameplay more instructive and challenging.

 

[Hellpug]

The Zelda ones didn't bother me, I liked to pick no sometimes just to see if there was a reaction. However, I do agree that doing that over and over loses all meaning after a while. Some games make saying no repeatedly an extremely worthwhile event, as the reaction of the asking character will sometimes escalate. There has to be a reward of some sort or don't put it there at all.

What I find worse, is stuff like in games where they market to you all these choices, but really you're on rails and sometimes its glaringly obvious. Those are more frustrating to me because you will spend so much time trying to prevent something and the game is just intent on making that thing happen and despite what you do, it happens anyways. Especially if that thing would've happened at the beginning if you just said "yes/whatever option" and it has zero impact whatsoever.

At least with Zelda's yes or no options that have no impact, it's not really wasting your time/heavily disappointing you, but again, not necessary.

 

[jkweath]

I disagree with pretty much everything that's been said in this topic so far. Immediately telling a player "actually I'm going to ignore the choice you just made" is insulting (unless played for laughs), but offering what appears to be a genuine, plot-altering or relationship-altering choice that quickly leads (in a convincing fashion) to the standard path can instill a sense of impact and consequence into your game without doing all the legwork to create lots of extra content or conditional branches.

This is a really cool way of looking at it. Sometime after I made this topic, I started thinking about how the Dragon Age series worked involving choices. Anyone who's played Dragon Age 2 (as well as 1 and Inquisition) know that the games were filled with dialogue choices--but in most situations, each choice led to the same outcome.

However, it was sort of obvious that the dialogue choices weren't meant to cause a different outcome anyway. The choices normally ranged from responding sarcastically, normally, or aggressively, and while they didn't serve to change an outcome, they did shape your character's personality and the response to your choice generally reflected which option you chose.

I'll admit that system did get old after awhile, but I rarely felt annoyed by it. It gave me the ability to respond to situations the way I wanted to, even if I knew the outcome would always be the same, and that helped me enjoy the game and the dialogue a bit more.

So I guess what I have to say is, when it's done right, dialogue choices can make a positive impact on the player even if they are just illusion of choice. It seems a lot of games have difficulty doing that, however, in my experience.